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Monday, June 30, 2014

Adventures down Rt. 36

To celebrate the beginning of my vacation from the "day job", my wife and I headed down to Newcomerstown at the southern end of Tuscarawas County to visit the Cy Young Days Festival. Cy Young was a baseball player born in the late 1800's in southern Tuscarawas County and spent his later years in Newcomerstown. While we were there, we took in an oldtime baseball game. If you have never seen an oldtime game, they are a lot of fun to watch. There are similarities to modern baseball, but the players don't wear a glove. Also, there is a higher level of sportsmanship among the players which is something you don't see a whole lot of in today's sport.

After we were done watching the game, we decided to continue our day out by heading west to Coshocton County and the canal boat rides on the Monticello III. Having lived on this side of Ohio for 30 years now, I've always heard about the Ohio-Erie canal and it's importance to the area, but never really was able to associate with it until we took a ride on the boat today. Riding on a canal boat is a very tranquil experience. Well, now it is. Back then living and working on the canal was a miserable experience and was no where near the pleasant one we had today. Our guide, Fred, gave a good history of the canal system in Ohio and it's importance to the economy of the state before the rail system took over.